We Need New Policy, Not Draftees

Charles J. Dunlap Jr., a retired Air Force general, is executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University school of law.

Updated March 21, 2012, 10:01 AM

It remains to be seen whether multiple deployments had anything to do with the slayings Sergeant Bales is accused of committing.

The all-volunteer army works. Our counterinsurgency strategy doesn't. We need to have fewer troops on the ground.

Regardless, the all-volunteer military works, and few in uniform would relish unwilling draftees in their ranks. And conscripts would not, in any event, solve the multiple deployment issue.

Sure, some 800,000 troops have served in Afghanistan at some point, but only a relatively small percentage of them serve on multiple deployments. Those that do are often very specialized soldiers whose jobs simply could not be filled by short-term draftees.

The problem is a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at winning "hearts and minds" yet relies on rotating hundreds of thousands of soldiers through a combat zone. The sheer numbers involved make it almost inevitable that from time-to-time a rogue will appear.

In the information-intensive world of the 21st century, the misconduct of just one -- regardless of the reason -- carries the potential to upend the entire mission.

We need a different approach. We’ve learned that the physical presence of masses of foreign troops inevitably breeds resentment among the very people we are trying to help. Incidents like the recent one only exacerbate that very serious problem. Former Army Chief of Staff General John Wickham had it right: “Large military forces alienate local populations, succeed less and cost more.”

If we must do these missions, we need a strategy that involves only a small number of highly trained troops on the ground, that leverages technology not just to fight from afar, but also to train and advise, that maximizes nongovernmental agencies for humanitarian services, and that brings indigenous security forces to the U.S. or other locations for training.

America can help with air, communications, logistics and other high-end capabilities, but local forces must comprise the overwhelming majority of the boots-on-the-ground that the people see.